An integer programming placement approach to FPGA clock power reduction

Clock signals are responsible for a significant portion of dynamic power in FPGAs owing to their high toggle frequency and capacitance. Clock signals are distributed to loads through a programmable routing tree network, designed to provide low delay and low skew. The placement step of the FPGA CAD flow plays a key role in influencing clock power, as clock tree branches are connected based solely on the placement of the clock loads. In this paper, we present a placement-based approach to clock power reduction based on an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation. Our technique is intended to be used as an optimization post-pass executed after traditional placement, and it offers fine-grained control of the amount by which clock power is optimized versus other placement criteria. Results show that the proposed technique reduces clock network capacitance by over 50% with minimal deleterious impact on post-routed wirelength and circuit speed.